The recently concluded Assembly election in Meghalaya saw a heated political battle between two political consultancies, ShowTime and Indian Political Action Committee (IPAC). ShowTime, hired by the National People’s Party (NPP), emerged victorious with NPP returning to power with a massive majority of 26 seats in the 60-member Meghalaya Assembly. ShowTime’s founder, Robbin Sharrma, attributed the victory to their meticulous and microscopic strategy and projecting Conrad Sangma as an aspirational leader. ShowTime is also doing political campaign strategy work for Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in Andhra Pradesh. In the run-up to the 2024 Andhra Pradesh Assembly elections, ShowTime will once again face off with IPAC, which is working with the ruling YSR Congress Party (YSRCP). While IPAC has nearly 700 people working in Andhra Pradesh, ShowTime has a smaller team of around 350 people. Political parties hire poll strategists to help with surveys, data crunching, and other work related to electioneering. However, poll strategists themselves say that their contribution to election victories cannot be quantified or translated into figures and percentages.
